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Youtube audio is always difficult to judge, but on a blind test, I would prefer the tone of the old hammers by a margin, at least for boogie. I am convinced that proper string and hammer work by a technician would improve the thin and somewhat clangy tone of the new hammers.

Jim Dunleavy
Full Member
Registered: 02/27/05
Posts: 230
Loc: The Original Washington (UK)

Jurgen, thanks for taking the time to listen.

The YouTube sound quality isn't helping of course, but it is fair to say that the new hammers are very bright in certain areas - however, remember they are straight out of the box, with no voicing done at all. The next job is to replace the strings, so I didn't want to voice the hammers using the old strings as a reference. I'm hoping that I can vastly improve the sound by voicing appropriately once the new strings are on and settled in.

Probably boogie isn't the best style to judge the hammers by - I have a before and after of a bit of Liszt that I might put up as well, though I needed the music for that, so the piano front is on - also I tend to hit a few bum notes in that one!

What's your plan for restringing? The bass sounds pretty thin, do you think that's just the strings? I see you've made a string pattern, do you intend to replace like with like on the scale? It might be worth looking into rescaling the bass strings if you haven't already ordered the replacements.

I'm sure those hammers will mellow a bit with some voicing - what kind did you put in?

Jim Dunleavy
Full Member
Registered: 02/27/05
Posts: 230
Loc: The Original Washington (UK)

Phil, I'm restringing the plain wire strings with a slightly modified scheme designed using scale ripper that smooths out the tensions and loudness by using more varied wire sizes than the original.

The bass strings are already made based on the originals, which sounded great when they were new (30 years ago!) but are now well past it. The stringmaker calculated a scale based on the first and last monochords and first and last bichords which I sent in as samples.

The hammers are Abel 100s with premium felt. I'm pleased to hear that you believe it's possible to voice them down - I was a bit worried when I first put them on that it would be difficult to tone the brightness down!

I'm putting up an A-B version of part of Liszt's Liebestraum No 3 as soon as I can get it to render properly - that actually gives a better idea of the sound of the hammers than the boogie, but has a few mistakes in it. I'm a bit short on 'before' recordings so I have to work with what I've got!

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_______________________________David Pinnegar, B.Sc., A.R.C.S.- East Grinstead, Sussex, UK - - http://www.organmatters.com - _______________________________Restoring life to music . . . and music to life . . . and a good deal more!